


Veterans of 1974

by factual



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-11
Updated: 2012-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-29 08:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/factual/pseuds/factual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An embassy ball, a young Hungarian countess, City boys galore, and, to Sherlock’s utter dismay, no catch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Veterans of 1974

**Author's Note:**

> One day I’m going to write some kind of full-blown romance that takes place in whimsically beautiful Swiss village, complete with snarky alcoholic inn keepers and a Shih Tzu with no name. Yeah oh yeah. In the mean time there is, um, this.

-/-

“Public image,” said John Watson, “and necessary.”

“A waste of time,” returned Sherlock Holmes, as the door closed behind them. John sighed and handed an address to the cabbie. It was just after six p.m on Sunday.

When Sherlock was seven, he decided that he liked to watch people. At the park, he noticed a man with his dog. It was easy enough to deduce that the man was blind and the dog was his Seeing Eye. The man sat on the bench and he held a vanilla folder in his left hand while drinking from a coffee mug held with his right. The dog, obedient, lay on its belly, wagging its tongue, swatting its paw at the insects crawling towards it.

As he was steered into the ballroom of the Hungarian Embassy, he remembered the man, remembered how the man had held his coffee with steady fingers. He had drunk with unquestionable ease: it had been as if he were not blind. He had vision like everyone else. He was determined to not be defined by his deficiency.

What a waste, he thought: everyone here was perfectly capable of sight and too inept to properly utilize it.

Even John, to an extent, was blind. Tonight’s ball was the birthday celebration of a young Hungarian countess. Recently engaged to a wealthy British investor, she had arrived in England to call upon her future family and to head a commemoration ceremony of a school built by the charity foundation she represented.

Most of the guests were young, fashionable, and attractive. They shared similar social circles and occupations and though they were not all personally familiar with the countess they did possess a link, in shape or form, to her and her family. But yuppies _are_ dull talk, and there was no kind of assassination plot on the countess. Nor was there a word of an affair or a delusional brother out for vengeance. (Sherlock was introduced. He was, of course, delighted to meet her. The countess gave a small smile but a firm handshake.)

Thirty minutes later, Sherlock excused himself to an outdoor balcony. It was not a cold night; it lay still and barren and if he listened closely he could hear the movement of cars, the grind of rubber wheels against the asphalt jungle. Then, just as suddenly, a cacophony of brakes and screeching; it came from the south, two blocks away. Probably a carjacking. For five seconds, he stopped breathing. The silence returned. Sherlock tapped his fingers impatiently.

“That’s not how it works, you know,” said John, stepping out onto the balcony. He had correctly assumed that he would be as far away as he possibly could from the festivities. Sherlock was leaning forward with his elbows on the railing. He looked down at the street with a world’s weight of boredom jammed against his cheekbones.

“What?”

“No matter how hard you think about it, a murder won’t just appear out of thin air. I’ve tried to imagine it, but somehow I don’t think potential murderers sit in a dark card room and scrawl on a poster board titled ‘How Will We Entertain Sherlock Holmes Tonight’.”

“How quaint. What makes you think that’s what I was considering?”

“I don’t—I don’t know. But I think I know you.”

John walked closer until they were not five meters apart. John cleaned up well when he made the effort; when he slept a full eight hours. His eyes did not have their usual bags, and his leg no longer gave the impression of stiffness. Earlier that evening Sherlock had seen him talk to a politician’s wife with only genuine politeness and charm and he seemed, to Sherlock, perfectly calm. It was disgusting. Sherlock did not thrive in a culture of calmness and gentility.

“Then tell me, John,” Sherlock began, “what do you make of this? A Hungarian countess visits London and celebrates her birthday at an embassy with strangers. Soon she’ll be married. She’s leaving her homeland; she’s quite young. She was educated in Switzerland. Now, marriage nowadays is nowhere like the older days; a return home is only a jet ride away. A divorce is only one phone away. And yet.”

“Oh, my God. You think there’s a catch.”

“My time is _wasted_ without one,” he retorted. “So we’ve come here, and yes, I’ve met the girl. Steered right into her, practically. Pretty, polite, no pushover. She shook your hand didn’t she? She has both the face of innocence and the capacity for strong nerves; she’s—”

“Will you stop the theorizing? We’re here as guests, remember? There is no catch.”

“Say that again.”

“There’s no catch. No. Catch. Nada zip zilch none nothing—”

Sherlock sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

“Not everyone lives for severed heads and ghastly lab experiments. Some people enjoy a life outside of work. You see, it relaxes them. It gives them a chance to break away from a pattern which all too often consumes and destroys.”

“You’re criticizing me.”

“No, Sherlock, I’m not—”

Sherlock looked at him.

“Not everything is about you. And I certainly don’t need—” and on he went. John did not usually go on tirades and when he did, he was often inspired. It made for good blog material, he claimed. Anyway it was nothing he hadn’t heard before and John had been getting tipsy at the open bar.

(John was a patriotic drunk; that is, he was at his nationalistic best when he had more than a few pints and shots in his system. He talked a lot of rot, mostly tidbits of crap telly and gossip which he picked up from Mrs. Hudson. Sometimes, on rare occasions, he talked about Afghanistan, and after telling one story or another he’d give a nervous glance and make Sherlock promise to not tell anyone what he had just said.

“They’ll be after me,” he whispered. “They’ll kill me.”

“Okay,” said Sherlock.

“ _They’ll kill me_.”

“Okay.”

The first time John returned to Baker Street in a heavily inebriated state, Sherlock was in the midst of testing and comparing blood samples from Barts. He couldn’t walk straight and managed to self-maneuver by pushing off from one wall to another, steadying himself, then pushing off again.

“I’m not pissed,” he yelled. And he kept yelling, “I’m not pissed,” because he was trying to prove something to someone. Finally he collapsed on the sofa and held close to his chest the cushion embroidered with the flag. Sherlock, who had no response, continued his experiment.)

He didn’t have one now either. But he did realize this: that the matter was, as John had said, not about him.

“You’re enjoying the party,” Sherlock stated.

“Well, generally, that’s the idea.”

“And it displeases you that I find it absolutely tedious.”

“Displeases is a strong word for this kind of—oh, what the hell. Sure. Not really. Just slightly.”

“Why?”

“I’m sure the answer’s crossed your mind, consultant.”

“No; tell me.”

This was their dance. Through words and questions, they offered and gave nothing. This was no game, it was connection, and it was the only way to truly, truly come close to understanding Sherlock. How else would he reveal himself? A superior once told John that you could never trust a person’s eyes. Eyes deceived. They did not tell the truth. They shed tears, shuddered with emotion, and rose in anger. Mouths, however, told you otherwise. People subconsciously bite the lower lip, they yawn, they part their lips just a bit and suck in air. People who think they are being sneaky reveal their own hand when they purse their lips or pout or open their mouth in the shape of a small _o_.

As to be expected, Sherlock was very careful about himself. It was as if he had set up an elaborate system of walls against which he was completely protected. People tested the security and over the years he adjusted accordingly, brought in additional reinforcements, performed monthly check-ups. It happened naturally and proceeded terribly cleanly. Like clockwork. John wondered how much of it Sherlock did knowingly.

And he wondered if Sherlock would ever know.

“It doesn’t matter,” said John.

“Of course it matters. You were going to say something.”

“It’s not important.”

“It matters.” He rested his chin on a fist. “New suit.”

“What? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Bought it a weekend or so ago. Sarah helped.”

“The doctor.”

“Yeah, well, turns out she knows quite a bit about menswear. Said she didn’t mind helping, you know, I mean, after what happened. Got to really appreciate that—that quality.”

“Hm.”

“She says I’m different now. I look”—he touched his finger to his chin and let it glide along the line of his jawbone—“more at ease. Less jittery.”

“Because you quit working at the surgery.”

“I work at another one now. She almost called me her rival. Technically, we’re competitors. God I missed her.”

“Remember there’s a reason why you don’t see her much to begin with.”

“Yes, there’s a reason. I still missed her.” John leaned against the balcony. “People stop seeing each other for a reason. They resume seeing each other for reason. There’s so much reason and so little all at once. People create and then they destroy what they’ve taken time to build. They can’t help themselves. It’s like we have to give in to something or we’re not human.”

“Nothing’s ever really created and destroyed to begin with. First law of thermodynamics. Things change, that’s all.”

“They are constantly changing, a lot of times without our ever noticing.”

“I notice.”

“You would notice.”

“John,” said Sherlock.

“Hm?”

“Why aren’t you at the party?”

Perhaps, in a way, he loved John. He felt toward him—what was the word?—oh, right—sentiment, which was as close to the accepted conditions and corollaries of the term “love” as Sherlock Holmes was capable of adhering to. As John himself had pointedly pointed out. (They were accustomed to each other, after all. John cleaned up his own messes. Twice a week, they bought takeaway and threw away the trash and any leftover lab specimens. John actually remembered to buy the milk.)

“I wanted to pop out for some fresh air. Want to clear my head a bit. It gets, uh, stuffy inside.”

“That’s not the reason. You were talking to people. You were—having fun.”

“They seem an awful nice lot. There’s food, too.”

“You know I don’t need company.”

“You never do.” John instinctively stuck his hands in his pocket. Somehow, all of their conversations came to the same junction, and John was still not sure if happened naturally or if it was all a sort of ruse.

Holding the door open, he asked: “Sure?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ll meet you back at Baker Street then.”

Baker Street was their common ground and Sherlock, who wore more or less the same clothes every day, was the constant. Even now, John found himself puzzled with aspects of Sherlock’s persona. For instance, he insisted on organizing John’s sweaters by density rather than color; once, he went a whole three days without water just to test a hypothesis on dehydration; he hated, with all his heart, Angry Birds. The fiber of Sherlock’s being was built upon creating mountains out of molehills and making certain that the kettle had a cover for every day of the week (and, more importantly, that it was dressed accordingly at all times.)

And years ago he would’ve spent the holidays on his own or at work. It made no difference to him if he had a plate of fruitcake waiting for him at home or if he had someone to share it with. Years ago, he would not have been willingly dragged to an extravaganza not destined for disaster. He was entirely his own person and entirely dependent. It happened so easily, so perfectly fucking easily and no one knew it.

“Don’t wait up,” John added.

“Of course not,” said Sherlock.


End file.
